


this is me trying (and maybe i don't quite know what to say)

by watchtheleaves



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Depression, M/M, Post-Canon Fix-It, abed is struggling, author is projecting, community fandom please let me in, i promise i promise, kinda? i mean, tagged teen for some swearing, then he gets a cat :D, troy is the most beautiful important person ever, yeah you know this has been done before
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-08
Updated: 2020-10-08
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:42:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26886064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/watchtheleaves/pseuds/watchtheleaves
Summary: abed has a list of things he doesn't like about los angeles. how loud it is, for example. or the fact that it doesn't have troy.
Relationships: Troy Barnes/Abed Nadir
Comments: 9
Kudos: 101





	this is me trying (and maybe i don't quite know what to say)

**Author's Note:**

> hi! this isn't really my first time writing trobed because i've written a lot of stuff i just haven't finished, so this isn't my first try at writing them but it _is_ my first time posting a community fic, so, i hope it's good! i just wrote it to make myself feel better after a pretty bad day, so, yeah. sorry if it's not on character, i tried my best!

There were many things Abed didn't like about Los Angeles. Life in a big city was much more complicated than in a small town like Greendale, and it came with a set of new rules to learn that he didn't have any time to adjust to. There was the difference in traffic, and how everything was louder and brighter and more crowded, and how going out at night was suddenly unsafe when he wasn't with a friend, which was pretty often, considering he didn't have any friends to go out with.

There were nice things, too. He was doing what he loved, and he had complete freedom to decorate and furnish his apartment—which was his own, for the first time, and not his and someone else's. He could sleep on the couch if he felt like it, he could watch _Empire Strikes Back_ as many times as he pleased, and he could yell at the top of his lungs against a pillow without scaring off anyone around him.

Abed considered Los Angeles to be an upgrade, if anything. He was where he wanted to be, he did what he wanted to do, he lived the life he wanted to live. He was as adult as he ever imagined he'd get at twenty-six, and of all the possible negative prospects of stepping into adulthood (like having a nine-to-five job or a child to take care of), Abed had managed to score none, leaving room in his life for the right amount of childishness.

If he thought about it, Abed could manage the loud and bright and crowded Los Angeles, and he could manage the change in traffic etiquette. What he really hated about it was how lonely it got at night.

Annie had warned him about it, and it had been his own fault for not listening to her. It would be different in Los Angeles, because no one would be there to know and care when he had days of empty and spiralling senselessness. No one would be there when Abed felt like not getting out of bed, like lying to everyone and shutting the entire world out. No one would knock on his door if he missed Thursday night-outs with his crewmates, because no one would know him enough to care. And that wasn't their fault—humans were trained to never care about anything, especially in big cities. Abed couldn't blame them.

But there would be no Annie to bring him buttered noodles and ice cream and a blanket, there would be no Jeff to sit by his side and give him a surprisingly good-aimed speech, there would be no well-meaning Shirley, there would be no Britta to psychoanalyze him out of those moods.

None of that mattered, he figured, in the end. Abed had managed to lose the only person who knew him with all his faults and still stuck around, the only person to ever really love and accept him without trying to change a single thing about him. And before that, Abed had lived nineteen years by himself, and he did just fine.

Nothing would change that now, he figured. It would be perfectly fine. Los Angeles would get dark, and then it would get bright, and Abed would cry and scream or he would laugh and enjoy the comfort of his own—small, yes, but _own_ —home.

The first few weeks, it was relatively easy to not feel sad. He kept himself busy with moving, with getting settled, with signing contracts and finding cheap furniture in one of the most expensive cities in the country. It was easy, because everything he did was a first (first time using his microwave, first time sleeping on his bed, first time taking a walk around the block). It was easy because Annie called him every other day to check in, and Britta and Jeff texted him frequently enough that he didn't find the buzz of being pitied as annoying as he once had.

After the first couple of weeks, it got only slightly harder to keep a bright spirit, which was okay. He was homesick, nostalgic, missing home and his friends and his father and Greendale as a whole. It was understandable; it was normal. If Abed cried, or he screamed, or he politely turned down every invitation to go out for drinks, no one could blame him. After all, he'd been _so brave_ to start his new life all by himself. He had a right to the ups and downs of it all.

On the first night of the third month, Abed went out for drinks completely alone. On the second morning, he sported a bruise from when he collapsed three meters too early and hit his head on the coffee table.

That same afternoon, he got a cat. Or, rather, he gave up trying to shoo away the cat that had found its way to his fire escape and made a home out of it, and he let it in before the rain got too strong. He checked for a nametag on it and improvised a bed out of a pillow. Then, he made cookies.

He was just walking through the door, cat carrier on one hand and veterinary paperwork on the other, when the phone rang. Abed counted the days and realized none of his friends had checked in on him in ten days—which meant something bad had happened, like someone dying or Britta accidentally setting a tree on fire.

(It had happened once, during a protest against climate change. The group loved to tease her for it. Abed thought it sent a very ironic message.)

Leaving his yet-to-name cat to rumble on free by opening the carrier, Abed checked that the door was properly closed before picking up the phone and speaking. His voice came out hoarse and it made his throat tickle, which was confusing. He had just spoken to the veterinarian not an hour back.

He shook his head, coughed, and repeated: "Hello?"

"Abed," exhaled Annie on the other side of the line. Abed would've been glad to hear her voice if it wasn't filled with emotion—bad emotion, negative, not chipper and overwhelmingly positive like Annie's usual tone. "Hi."

"What's wrong?" Abed asked as if reading the line out of a textbook. He hoped Annie knew he cared more than he could convey.

"I just—Are you busy?"

Abed shook his head, following the wandering black-and-white cat with his eyes. He said, "Not at all. Are you hurt? Is it Britta? Jeff? Shirley? Maybe one of her son's? Did—"

"I just talked to him."

A beat. Then, "Him, as in—"

" _Him_ , Abed."

"Oh."

There were many things Abed didn't like about Los Angeles. He kept them on a list in the notebook Annie got him for Christmas. The list was extensive and went over both trivial and more serious things, from the color of most buildings to how hot it got when Abed least needed it to.

There was one thing on the top of his list. It had been scratched off and erased many times, but it always found its way back there. It was a name, one Abed knew so well he felt like his hand had been sculpted just to write it over and over again.

Abed didn't like to look at the list for this very reason.

On the fourth night of the third month, the name _Troy Barnes_ shined on the little screen of his home phone, giving a faint blue light to the otherwise dark room.

The phone rang, and Abed looked at it. He was sitting on the couch as he had been for three hours, frozen with a pillow clenched between his arms and his chin resting on top of it. His hair was messy and his eyes stung and his hand tingled and ached to move. He hovered it over the phone for a couple of seconds, watched it tremble, then pulled it back.

The phone stopped ringing, and the room fell silent. Abed didn't dare to move, just stared at it without blinking. Five seconds later, the screen lit up again, and Abed picked up the phone and held it to his ear without breathing.

A few moments of complete silence went by. Abed wondered if that was what people meant by "time slowing down", because he was aware it was completely impossible, but Abed could feel the seconds slipping away painfully slowly, as if there was something that needed to happen and time itself was worried it wouldn't be enough.

Abed heard someone breathe in on the other side of the line, and then:

"Fuck. I can't think of any _Star Wars_ lines."

He closed his eyes and felt his face tense up. He didn't talk. Not a single word.

"I had this whole thing planned," the other person said. "I'd say this _Star Wars_ quote and you would answer with another quote and then—I don't know. I guess it was a pretty bad plan."

The fear of talking would've seemed strange and irrational to the common eye, but to Abed it made perfect sense. Humans had a habit of speaking over one another, silencing each other almost subconsciously. Abed didn't want to do that. He didn't want to do anything that could make Troy stop speaking.

He didn't. He said: "Annie told me you changed numbers, which was weird, because I know you hate doing that. But then she told me it's because you moved, which is so awesome, and she told me about your new job and the apartment and she basically did the whole catching up for us, which, I mean, I'm thankful. I was just happy to know you were still around. If, uh, that makes any sense. Not that I thought you'd died, or anything—"

"I did," mumbled Abed. Then, he clarified, "I thought you were dead. For a while. Until Annie told me you called."

"Oh," said Troy. He was silent for one painful moment before adding, "I mean, I almost did. Some pirates kidnapped us. That's why I didn't call or text or, well, anything. It was crazy. LeVar says it's no big deal but, I mean, _pirates_ , you know? And they said they were going to kill us or something—they were French and the accent really threw me off so I didn't understand most of what they were saying—but eventually we escaped and it was kind of really awesome."

Abed took in the words one by one, and they worked as spare oxygen for his suddenly malfunctioning brain. He fumbled with things to say, Troy patiently waiting on the other side of the line. Eventually, the unnamed cat meowed and jumped to sit on his lap. This sparked Troy's interest.

"Was that a cat?"

"Yeah." Abed swallowed the knot in his throat and breathed. "He's been a real pain in the ass. I can't think of a name."

"Well, what does he look like?"

Looking down at the cat, Abed pursed his lips and caressed his head warily. The cat purred in return, and Abed tilted his head to give a better look at him.

"He's mostly white, with black spots on his eyes and mouth. And on his tail, too. And he's tiny, but I guess that's normal because the doctor said he's two months old. And he's really touchy-feely. Like you," Abed said, then gave the cat a small smile.

"Aw," Troy sang. "Um, okay. What about Lando? Or Bones?"

"I don't think he's a Bones," Abed said as the cat found a comfortable position on his thighs. "And I had a fish named Lando when I was little."

"Right," Troy said, thoughtful. After a beat, he added, "What about… Sega? You know, like the—"

"The console, yeah," Abed nodded as if anyone could see him.

He looked down at the cat, tilted his head in different angles, stroked his head softly.

"What do you say, hm? Are you a Sega?" he said, uncharacteristically sweet. After a moment of consideration, he nodded again. "I think he's a Sega."

"Cool," said Troy. Abed could almost see his smile. "So, uh. How have you been? How's LA?"

Abed tensed up, then looked at his surroundings. He was sitting on the couch in his tiny living room and there wasn't a single light turned on. Sega was now sound asleep on his lap, and the sounds of night traffic were the only thing to fill the ambient. He was wearing his pajamas and his hair was ruined, and his face still felt tense, as if his stability was a ticking bomb.

"LA's fine," Abed lied.

Troy doubted for a second before asking, "F-Y-N-E or F-I-N-E?"

His voice was careful, as if he didn't want to know the answer—as if he didn't deserve to know. Abed closed his eyes once again and took a deep breath.

"I don't know," he said, voice small. "LA is great. I just never pictured it like this."

"Like what?"

"Lonely."

"Oh," Troy said.

The next minute went by in a piercing silence that made Abed want to crawl out of his skin. Troy's breathing on the other side of the phone and the warm weight of Sega on his legs were the only things keeping him grounded as he started to slip away.

"How's the boat—"

"I'm coming home," Troy said, speaking over him and so fast Abed thought he had misheard him. Thankfully, he repeated, slower, "I'm coming home this summer."

Abed blinked. "Okay."

"That's why I called, actually. I mean, I wanted to talk to you first, but I couldn't get through, so I talked to Annie. She doesn't know, though. I just told her I had to talk to you because I wanted to ask you first, to know if it was okay."

"You want my permission to come home?"

"No," Troy said. "I want your permission to come home to you."

There were many things Abed didn't like about Los Angeles. He thought about them, each and every single one of them. He thought of how he'd never considered the place his home in the three months he'd lived there. He went through the list as Troy kept talking, because Abed couldn't get a single word out.

"I know it's stupid and immature and it seems impulsive but I've been giving this a lot of thought, actually, and I know that sounds weird because of course this should include both of us and, fuck, I don't even know if you feel the same way, or if you like me like _that_ , but I'm hoping you do and I'm willing to risk this even if you don't because I really, _really_ miss you, like, I-would-put-a-billion-dollars-at-stake-just-to-talk-to-you kind of miss you. And I don't know if that's just me, if it's the sea, or if you miss me too, but I just—"

"Troy."

Troy breathed. "Abed."

Abed took a minute to gather the words. Troy waited.

"I think I'd miss you even if we had never met."

He felt Troy's smile as it leaked into his words and he said, breathy and watery, "That's not _Star Wars_."

"No," Abed said, and he was smiling, too, and his face hurt a little, and his eyes were filled with tears, but he didn't want to let them out if there was anything he could do to avoid it. "But I watched everything on my list like three times since I moved here, and then I got bored and nostalgic, so I started watching stuff on your list instead."

Troy laughed, bright and light. "I thought you hated rom-coms," he said.

"I thought so, too." Another silence, one filled with kinder words and sweet emotions that made Abed's feel fuzzy and comfortable and like he was made of honey. He said, eventually, "So, summer."

"Summer," echoed Troy. "I can stop by Greendale, first, if you want. I don't know how you wanna do this, uh. You know. This."

"Right," Abed nodded. "I think you should dock in LA. If you want."

"Yeah. Okay, yeah. Cool. Awesome. So, summer."

"Summer." Abed threw his head back to rest on the couch cushion and glanced at the ceiling. Sega was breathing softly on his lap and he carded an instinctive hand over his head. "Are you going to tell the rest?"

For a moment, Troy thought. Then, he said, "Not yet. I mean—is that okay? I just really wanted to talk to you about this and, you know, just talk to you, but talking to everyone else—I don't think I can do it, you know? Summer is still five months away and I think the only reason I didn't quit at some point over the past year and a half is because I convinced myself that nobody missed me."

"Troy—"

"No, no, I know. It's—I know it's stupid, and a lie, and by how Annie cried when she heard my voice, I know they all still care. And I care about them, too, and I can't wait to see them, but…"

"Not yet."

"Yeah," Troy said. "Not yet. Is that okay?"

"Sure," Abed said.

Troy let out a breath and thanked him. Abed reached over the table where the phone base rested and turned on the light next to it. He blinked away the bright yellow, then sat back down. Sega startled awake at the sudden movement and jumped off the couch. Abed watched him walk towards the kitchen in an offended fashion.

"So, about those pirates."

"Dude, you have no idea. It was so scary, but also kind of cool? Like, now I'm always gonna be able to say I got kidnapped by French pirates. How cool does that sound? Like 'please describe your biggest accomplishments', 'I was kidnapped by pirates', 'you're hired'."

Abed smiled as Troy rambled on and on until he ran out of breath, and then he asked Abed about his job, and about what he'd missed on TV lately, and about the others in the group, and about Lando the fish, and Abed answered each of his questions expeditiously like he was talking to the most important reporter in the world.

It was late enough that Abed had to lower his voice when Troy finally had to hang up, with a promise to call again the next week. And then Abed didn't want to hang up, and Troy didn't want to hang up, either, so they recreated the most cheesy of tropes until Sega ran into the table and knocked over the phone, ending the call immediately.

As Sega eyed the phone and then walked away with little interest and even less remorse, Abed sat on the bed with the phone on his ear and stared at the turned off TV. He was alarmed by the wetness of his cheeks a few moments later, and he sobbed, and he hugged the pillow that had been discarded to the side hours earlier, but his face hurt a little less and his chest felt a little lighter.

He texted Annie, after that. A simple ' _talked to him_ ', to which she replied with a million questions he didn't have the energy to respond. He stood up, then, and went to the kitchen to feed Sega and make himself a late dinner.

On the fifth day, Abed talked to someone at work, made a joke, laughed at a joke. It was easy. He played a character—the easygoing, hardworking crewmate. It worked wonders. Then, he went home, he lied in bed, and he took the longest nap of his life.

On the sixth day, he made tea. On the seventh day, he went out and got Sega a nametag and a toy he never played with. On the eighth day, he called Annie, and then Jeff, and then Britta, and then Shirley. He promised to do that more often. On the ninth day, he rented _The Princess Bride_ and _Love, Rosie_ and watched them back to back.

There were many things Abed didn't like about Los Angeles. In every possible way, Greendale was infinitely better, and Abed knew that. He knew it and held that fact close to his chest with pride, because Greendale was a part of him, even after Los Angeles became his home, slowly but surely. And Greendale was enough of a reason for him to get out of bed in the morning, or to force himself under the shower, or to change his clothes when they got dangerously close to toxic, or to feed himself, or to play with Sega, or to stay in touch with the world when he felt like pushing it away and retreating to the shadows.

On the one hundred fifty-fourth day, Abed got up at four in the morning, dressed up with more detail than he'd done in a very long time, and went to the docks. Later that night, he went home, and later on he went to bed, and even later on he lied awake and thought.

There were many things Abed could learn to love about the home he made out of Los Angeles. Cats, and bittersweet reunions, and romantic comedies.

He turned around, uneasy, and Troy was sleeping next to him.

Abed would've liked Los Angeles a lot less if it was perfect, he then thought. If it was perfect, if Abed never hurt the way he did, his fate would've been different. And maybe that was what he had needed: to hurt before healing. To feel completely lost, only to find himself in the smallest things. Like a cat named Sega, or tea in the mornings, or Troy on his Caller ID.

Abed learned to let himself be loved by Los Angeles and everything about it. He burned the list. He made a new one. Loving it back came easy after that.

**Author's Note:**

> so that's that!! i'm on twitter as @h7ewon if you wanna talk to me about them ( _please_ talk to me about them) or you just wanna see me lose my mind over this show and other sitcoms.
> 
> please leave a comment if you'd like! also remember to drink water and wear a mask and _vote_. <3


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